MIT Camera Snaps at the speed of light

MIT Media Lab researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion frames per second. That's fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of light traveling through objects. Video: Melanie Gonick.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report they have developed a camera that can capture the speed of light in fractions of seconds.

The researchers from MIT's Media Labs suggest the new technology and imaging techniques could prove to be highly beneficial, maybe 10 years down the line, in hospitals and testing centers, as a hand-held medical scanner.

The imaging system can acquire visual data and capture images at a rate of 1 trillion frames per second and also produce a slow-motion video of light travelling through an object.

"Watching this it looks like light in slow motion. It is so slow you can see the light itself move across the distance," said Ramesh Raskar, an Associate Professor of Media Arts at the Media Lab.